


Both Sides Now

by twistedmiracle



Series: Folk Songs [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: And in Jack's head, Jewish Jack Zimmermann, M/M, Mostly happens over Skype
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-14 18:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14142009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedmiracle/pseuds/twistedmiracle
Summary: Bitty gets home from MooMaw's house and wants to talk with Jack as soon as he can.





	1. Bitty's call

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Joni Mitchell’s beautiful late 1960s folk song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRjsS3sgY5I
> 
> This fic is part of my Folk Songs series, and will probably make more sense to those who have read the first two installments. I think it also works as a standalone piece, though, if you prefer.
> 
> I know it isn't always a Jewish name, but everyone I know named Zimmermann goes to my synagogue. So in my head, Jack is Jewish. A "mitzvah" is a good deed. 
> 
> For those who can't see the picture of Jack's phone, the texts say:  
> Bittle: **Hey sweetheart, I have a free hour or two right now. Wanna Skype?**  
>  Jack: _Absolutely, Bits. I am finishing up with a charity thing so I need to say goodbye to George before I can drive home. I should be able to log into Skype within 20 minutes or less, though. Does that sound good?_  
>  Bittle: **'swawesome, sweetpea! I just got home from MooMaw's and I have something kind of amazing to tell you.**  
>  Jack: _I'm excited to hear all about it, bud._  
>  Bittle: **I’ll be waiting, honey!**

Jack was finishing up with a charity event with the Falconers when he saw Bitty’s text. 

  
[ ](https://postimages.org/)

 

Not many of his teammates had been around for this one, so George had really pushed him to attend. But Jack had neither minded, nor had anything better to do. Spending a few hours teaching disadvantaged kids how to skate was much easier for him than schmoozing with the wealthy donors whose money paid for the skates and ice time. Besides, it was a mitzvah, as Maman would say. 

Still, most of the kids had left on a bus ten minutes ago, and George waved him off when he asked if he needed to stay any longer. Tater and Snowy had already left, and Guy and Marty were heading toward the locker room.

There was no traffic, so he got home quickly. He parked, took the stairs up because it felt faster than waiting for the elevator, and dropped his gym bag by the washing machine. He grabbed a protein bar and a can of raspberry-flavored sparkling water, set up his laptop on the coffee table, then logged in to Skype.

Bits was already there. Jack smiled as the connection started to go through. His smile only got wider when Bitty appeared on his screen.

“Hey, Bits,” he said, feeling dopey and happy and so glad to see him. 

“Hey, Jack,” Bitty responded quietly, his accent audible even through just those two words. They smiled at each other for a few long, quiet seconds, until Jack remembered Bitty’s text. 

“What did your MooMaw tell you, bud? Sounded exciting.”

Bitty’s eyes widened and he leaned forward slightly. He put both hands up to his mouth and Jack could not stop grinning. Whatever this was, it had to be good.

“I have a gay uncle,” Bitty whispered.

Jack felt his eyebrows hit his hair.

“Seriously? In Madison?”

“No,” Bitty said, still very quiet. He breathed out, a long breath, and Jack watched and waited. “In New York City. My Uncle Thomas. He’s Coach’s oldest brother. I sort of knew he lived up north, but no one hardly talked about him, and I’d never given that much thought.” 

Bitty’s face twisted — from wonder to disappointment. 

“I guess they’re ashamed of him,” he said, and his eyes fell to his lap, where Jack thought he was probably twisting his fingers in the fabric of his shorts.

“MooMaw isn’t, though,” Jack tried. “Right?”

Bitty’s face opened up again.

“No,” he sighed out with what looked to Jack like relief. “No. I guess she couldn’t be.”

“Tell me all about it, Bits,” Jack said, offering an encouraging smile.

“Mama suggested I go visit with MooMaw today,” Bitty began, and laid out his afternoon. He’d expected to cook with his grandmother, but instead she had met him at her porch swing with a big pitcher of lemonade and told him a tale of an oldest son who had always loved his Mama more than football, loved drawing more than church. Or girls. He’d earned a decent scholarship to learn architecture at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and his Mama had convinced his Daddy that they should come up with the rest of the tuition, though it had been something of a struggle. 

Once he had started at Tech he’d changed. The boy who loved to spend time with his Mama became the boy who needed to earn straight A’s in everything, go to school all summer, do every extra program and maybe graduate early. MooMaw felt like she never saw him anymore, but she knew he was getting excellent grades and had even made a friend or two, so she and Grandpappy paid the bills and concentrated on helping Uncle David and then Aunt Judy go off to UGA. 

Before Coach had even finished high school, though, Uncle Thomas had finished his master's in architecture at Tech and had gotten a job at a fancy architecture firm in New York City. 

MooMaw said it felt like he moved away in between blinks. 

Bitty had squeezed one of MooMaw’s hands while she dabbed away a tear with the other.

If Thomas had felt far away in Atlanta, that was nothing compared to how far away he felt when he moved to Manhattan. But his Mama was utterly determined to stay in touch with her boy. She bought him an answering machine. She called. Frequently. 

He came home for Christmas that first year, and Thanksgiving the next. But when he refused to come home at all the third year, his Mama said that was fine; she would just come visit him.

He tried to stop her. “I’m too busy to entertain you,” he told her. She said she didn’t mind, as long as she got to see him for a bit in the evenings after he came home from work. 

“You have to eat dinner every night,” she’d pointed out. “Let your Mama cook for you and we can have some time together when you can’t be working anyway.”

“I have a roommate and there’s no room for a visitor in our tiny Manhattan apartment,” he told her. 

“You have a couch, don’t you?” she insisted. “I’m not even five foot four. I can fit on any couch, even one small enough for an apartment in Manhattan.”

Bitty giggled. 

“Jack, I had to interrupt and tell her she wasn’t five three, either, and she got a little huffy and said she’d shrunk since then.”

Jack smiled and finished his sparkling water, waiting for Bitty to tell him the rest.

Eventually, MooMaw had simply bought herself a plane ticket. “If you are too busy to pick me up at the airport,” she had told Thomas, “then I will catch myself a taxi and get the full New York City experience.”

And that is exactly what his MooMaw had done. She’d arrived at LaGuardia on a Tuesday afternoon and — with a fair bit of assistance from staff at the airport — she’d found a cab and taken it to her son’s apartment in Washington Heights. She’d packed very, very lightly, because she hadn’t known how long she would have to wait for Thomas to come home from work and let her in. There were a few parks close by, she’d reminded him. She could wander around for an hour or two if she had to.

But when she’d stepped out of the cab in front of the tidy brick building, a tall, handsome black man with an accent she couldn’t place had said, “You must be my roommate’s Mama.” He let her in to number six, begged her to sit down, and made her a cup of coffee. 

His name was Isaiah. He was almost the same age as Thomas and he’d grown up in Chicago. He’d gone to college at the University of Illinois and he had moved to New York City to study law at Columbia. He was about to finish up his third year, and he admitted that he was doing ‘pretty well.’”

MooMaw, of course, had known plenty of black people throughout her whole life, but never one in law school and never from Chicago, so she and Isaiah had passed a pleasant 45 minutes or so while they waited for Thomas.

And then Thomas had come home.

And that was when MooMaw had started to figure things out.

“Isaiah is your uncle’s boyfriend?” Jack asked, completely caught up in the story. 

“Was,” Bitty said, as his eyes went a little haunted.

“They broke up?” Jack said, frowning. Isaiah already sounded like a catch.

“He … died,” Bitty said, and Jack put his hands in his hair and wondered what the hell to say. 

“AIDS?” Jack finally whispered, the word echoing in his veins as Bitty gave him one very solemn nod. It was something he never felt like he had to think about. He’d gotten himself tested after his overdose. He’d come up antibody free and stopped worrying about it. After all, it wasn’t like he was fucking anyone. And then, it wasn’t like sex with Camilla (three or four times, total) while wearing a condom felt like much of a risk, either. He’d not actually done anything risky enough with either Kate or Samantha to even wear a condom. And Kent had been the only guy, until Bitty. Who had been about as virginal as people got.

But … AIDS. If they were ever going to be part of some sort of larger gay community it was something he probably needed to think about. Jack wasn’t really sure what that would mean.

“What about protease inhibitors?” Jack tried. 

“He passed in 1995, not long after I was born,” Bitty said. “They’d been invented by then, I guess, but Isaiah was already …”

“It was too late?” Jack whispered. 

Bitty just nodded.

“ _Tabarnak_ …” Jack said, taking his eyes from the screen for a moment, taking a deep breath, putting his hands together and wringing them, just once.

“Yeah,” Bitty said. They sat in silence for a long heartbeat.

Finally, Jack realized there was a terrible, painful question he had to ask. “Did your uncle …”

“No!” Bitty cried. “No. MooMaw swears Thomas never caught it from Isaiah. Swears he’s completely virus-free.”

“So she’s still close to him?”

“She’s the only one, apparently.” Bitty frowned. “She says no one went up to the funeral with her. And Thomas never comes to Georgia anymore. Not since my Grandpappy William’s funeral. Which I honestly don’t remember, since I was barely six.”

Jack nodded, hoping Bits would keep talking.

“But she visited him again a few years after Isaiah passed. She says she wants to visit him again soon. Or she might wait until I graduate. She says it’s getting harder and harder to travel, but she couldn’t miss my college graduation.” 

He offered Jack a watery smile, and Jack wanted so desperately to take Bits into his arms and hold him close. 

“ _Torrieu_ ,” Jack said, instead. “So how are you feeling? This is… _merde_. This is a lot to get dumped on you all in one afternoon.”

“I feel like,” Bitty paused and looked up toward his ceiling. “I mean, what have _I_ got to complain about, right? Isaiah is _dead_ for Pete’s sake. Uncle Thomas had to _bury_ him. And … his brothers and sister and … his own _Dad_ just … abandoned him? But, and maybe this is selfish, I also feel so glad to have MooMaw on my side? Because, I think she knows about me, Jack, and us, too. I didn’t exactly come out to her, but — I all but did. And I also, I mean, now I know I can’t come out to Mama and Coach until I’m ready to leave home and never need them for anything. Ever again.” 

Bitty sobbed then, just once, and the sound tore a hole in Jack’s heart. He wanted to say “no, no,” to promise Bits his nice, polite parents would never abandon him, that they loved him. But how could he lie to Bitty’s face like that? He didn’t know what they would do. And they would, apparently, write off Coach’s brother for this.

“I’m all messed up,” Bitty said, and now tears were starting to creep down his sweet face. “It’s just so much. I have a whole family member I didn’t even really remember to think about! And he’s _gay_! And he’s just a few hours from Samwell! And I feel almost completely certain I can tell MooMaw all about us and she won’t bat an eye, let alone send me away! But at the same time,” he wiped the tears from his face but more took their place, “at the _same time_ , my gay uncle is … is a pariah? And proof that my parents are super homophobic? And Aunt Judy, too?”

Bitty twisted away for a moment, coming back with a box of tissues. He pulled one out and wiped his face.

“I’m so angry at all them. I can’t believe they just … stopped talking about him. Their own flesh and blood! And they never told _me_!”

He blew his nose delicately. Jack waited.

“Because at the same time, Jack, I am just _flabbergasted_ on some level that no one even thought to mention him to me until this summer. Were they keeping him from me, or did they seriously just not realize I would want to know? I mean,” he dabbed at his cheeks again, “MooMaw … I think she honestly just now figured me out while you were visiting. I thought I was so fucking _obvious_. But apparently … not?”

Bitty threw his tissue away and took another one out of the box. He took a deep breath and Jack could tell he was working to get control of his voice. He surely didn’t want either of his parents to overhear this.

“I guess I’m also a little surprised that the first person to figure me out was my MooMaw. I always figured my cousin Sheree or my Aunt Judy would be the first person to say … something. I thought MooMaw was,” he looked away and the tops of his cheeks went pinker.

Jack wanted to kiss him there.

“It’s embarrassing, I suppose, to realize I underestimated one of my favorite people. But, in my defense, she couldn’t even remember how long I’d been away at college. Who knew she could forget so much and still be the person who sees me the clearest?”

Jack just nodded. He wasn’t going to interrupt Bitty for anything less than the condo catching on fire. Bitty needed him.

“It’s horrifying the way he’s just been … exiled from the family,” Bitty said, his eyes enormous. “No more hometown Georgia, no more sister, no more brothers, he almost missed his own father’s funeral. He can’t eat Aunt Judy’s jam or … Jack.” Bitty’s eyes flew wide. “He’s never had a single one of my pies.” 

Bitty and Jack paused together to contemplate such a loss.

“And at the same time, I have to admit I’m … impressed?”

Jack made a little interrogative noise.

“What I mean,” Bitty said, looking at his lap for a moment before making eye contact and starting again, “is that apparently Uncle Thomas, whose family is horribly homophobic and doesn’t actually love him? He just … walked away from them. From their baloney. Moved to New York. Got a great job and never has to deal with these … _people_. Not ever again, if he doesn’t want to. And I know those two things contradict, but … I still feel both of them, anyway.”

Jack nodded. Yes, those were contradictory feelings, but he still thought they both made sense for Bits to feel.

“Also,” Bitty said, now looking deeply into Jack’s eyes, “I feel really, just so very _sad_. I have this gay uncle and I’ve been missing him all my life. I feel like he must be so alone? And at the same time, it’s weird, I feel _less_ alone? Heck, I should have _two_ gay uncles, but AIDS stole my Uncle Isaiah away. That feels so, just,” he sniffed loudly, then breathed in once, breathed out slow, started again. “It feels really fucking unfair. And terrifying, because I’ve given HIV so little thought, because, well, you know.” 

This time, Bitty didn’t just pause, he stared into Jack’s face and seemed expectant. Jack nodded, but Bitty’s expression didn’t change, so Jack tried to reassure him.

“I got tested once,” he tried. “After the overdose. After … euh, Kent. Came up negative. I have to admit, Bits, I haven’t really thought about it since, myself. I mean, people still catch it, I know, and if you weren’t a virgin when we’d started dating I’d have suggested we get tested. But we’re both so inexperienced. It didn’t feel important.”

Bitty nodded. “You did tell me you’d had a negative test. I hadn’t realized it was so long ago.”

“I could get tested again, if you want,” Jack said, worried he had done something wrong.

“Maybe we both should,” Bitty said, sounding unsure.

“Anything you want,” Jack said, nodding. “I’m sure the team’s nurse practitioner would test me very privately, if I asked. “Hell, I’m sure he could test you, too, when you come visit before school starts back up.”

“Yeah,” Bitty said, giving Jack one small nod. “It might be stupid, but … I feel like I should get tested before I go visit him.”

“You want to visit him?” Jack asked, working to sound neutral. Of course he wanted his Bits to make a connection with his gay uncle! But he also wanted every single non-hockey weekend to be … theirs.

“I thought,” Bitty looked down again. “I thought maybe we could both go.”

Jack felt warmth spread through him, and he smiled. “I’d love to,” he promised. 

“MooMaw offered to give him my phone number,” Bitty said, his eyes wide and uncertain again. “I’m waiting to hear from him.”

“I hope you hear from him really soon, bud,” Jack said, and found he truly meant it.


	2. Jack's call

Jack thought about Bitty and his Uncle Thomas all through his Sunday morning run. He thought about them while he cooked, while he did push-ups, while he tried to relax into sleep that night. He was happy for Bitty, angry for both of them, relieved Bitty had his MooMaw’s support and angry that he probably wouldn’t have it from Suzanne and Coach.

But, in the privacy of his own thoughts, he started to realize that this wasn’t just about Bitty. Not for him. At least inside his own head, his own life, this was also... about him. He tied his running shoes, grabbed his phone and house key, and headed out for his Monday morning run.

When he’d first kissed Eric and then started texting and Skyping him, he thought of Bitty as completely out of the closet. Which, he sort of was. At Samwell. In Massachusetts. But when they had seen one another in baggage claim at the Atlanta airport, they couldn’t kiss, they couldn’t speak freely. They’d had to rush off to a truck with tinted windows hidden away at the very back of a huge parking lot in order to kiss and hold one another. In order to greet one another properly. No one else was allowed to know how they felt about one another.

Because in Georgia, Bitty was even more in the closet than Jack. 

Which was terrible! But … Jack could admit, in his own head, it made things a little easier. Perhaps more accurately, it gave Jack an excuse to _feel less guilty_ about asking Bitty to keep him a secret from the team. 

Jack’s feet pounded on the pavement in a strong, almost soothing rhythm.

So far, they had told absolutely no one about their new relationship. No friends, no parents. No Wellies, no Falconers. But if they went to visit Uncle Thomas in August or September, then they would obviously tell _him_. And if they told Uncle Thomas, would Bitty then want to come out of the closet to … other people? MooMaw? Jack could probably handle that? Shitty? Jack could maybe handle that, except then Shitty would want to tell Lardo, and then those two would want to tell Ransom and Holster, and then it would be inevitable that within a few days all their Samwell teammates would know. Wouldn’t it? Soon the damn frogs would know. _That_ Jack could _not_ handle. 

He shook his head in confusion as he approached his building. The doorman nodded at him and he smiled back, nodding once and choosing the stairs, as usual. 

Jack wasn’t sure he was ready for any of this. He already felt bad for asking Bitty to hide their relationship. Would this make that worse? Would it be bad for them as a couple? But he couldn’t ask Bitty not to come out to his own gay uncle. He just couldn’t. He’d feel like a complete asshole. Bitty would hate him. 

Getting to the fourth floor, Jack strode over to his door and went inside, heading for the shower.

Bitty, of course, had promised Jack over and over that he understood the importance of Jack’s hockey career. That didn’t make Jack feel any better for asking. Would meeting this gay uncle and coming out to him, meeting his uncle with Jack standing next to him, being his … were they boyfriends? Merde, he was going to have to _ask_ Bits to be his boyfriend. Officially. 

Jack dried himself off and began to dress to head out to morning skate. He grabbed his gym bag, already packed. He slid his wallet in the side pocket and took his keys from the bowl by the door. This time he took the elevator downstairs, because Mrs. Minkel was waiting for it and she smiled at him, so he felt like he should be social enough to say hello and wait for it with her. 

Would showing up with Jack make it harder for Bitty to be closeted about them after their weekend in New York was over? At school? With the team? With Shitty? Hell, Jack talked to Shitty more than Bitty did. Would this visit make it harder for _Jack_ to keep their secret? Or, would this somehow throw Bitty even further into the closet by giving Bits _yet another thing_ that he couldn’t talk about?

Jack was pretty sure only one of those things could be true at once, but he was getting confused. He parked in his usual spot and headed in for morning skate. 

Passing the Nook, Jack waved a good morning to Poots who waved back but didn’t come over. He was curious to meet this Uncle Thomas, in addition to all the other contradictory and conflicting feelings he was struggling with. Would Thomas be like Bits? Like Coach? Like his mother, MooMaw? Would he be good for Bitty to know? Maybe even for Jack? 

Jack started lacing up his skates. It would be strange to meet a gay man who was old enough to have lost a boyfriend to AIDS. Jack had been so closeted, and so focused on hockey, that he had never had anything even approaching a gay mentor. That sounded kind of … nice, actually. 

Of course, if Thomas was a hockey fan then instead of nice it could be awkward as hell. Or worse.

Though surely he could be trusted, with a history like his, to keep their secret? 

Jack followed Marty and Snowy toward the ice, thinking about trust and teamwork. Then he stopped, putting one hand on the wall. He leaned over to check the laces on one skate, to hide the look he was now surely wearing on his face. What the hell was the matter with him? This was Bitty’s life, Bitty’s uncle, Bitty’s family, Bitty’s decisions. Here he was selfishly thinking all this through as though it were about him.

This wasn’t about him.

Jack straightened, heading toward the ice again and wishing, with all his soul, that he could just talk this mess over with Shitty. Shitty could help him think this all out and know how to be fair to everyone and how to care about everyone while still putting Bitty first. Shitty would know what he should do, and what he should say. It would be so good to have an ear, a shoulder. Someone he could go to who ...

He couldn’t do that yet, he suddenly realized. He wasn’t ready to share this. Not even with Shitty. But he could give that to Bitty. He could give Bitty a person, who wasn’t Jack, to confide in, be open with, and to know this secret. Their secret.

Jack headed out to the ice, his mind clear, a smile on his face. 

“You ready to work?” Marty asked.

“Hell, yes,” Jack said, and found it was true.

That night he Skyped with Bitty as soon as Bitty could get away after cleaning up from dinner.

“Let’s plan a trip to New York City to meet your uncle,” he said, and the joy on Bits’ face was everything he ever wanted Bitty to have.


End file.
